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Hedwig, Trump, & my Gender

The week of October 25, 2018

By Elliot BarberPublished 4 years ago 5 min read
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Me in June 2019

This week of my life I was transforming from the inside out yet again. All week, thinking about and listening to and fixating on the same things as I let myself molt and reveal something about myself I had been unsure of for years.

But first, you should know a few things that happened to me around that time.

1. I listened to the soundtrack of Hedwig and the Angry Inch for the first time and didn’t stop for several more weeks. Not even sure at first what exactly drew me in so strongly, but it was inescapable. It became a part of me before I could figure out exactly what that meant.

2. The Trump administration came out with a blatant attack against the trans community that would trigger many things in the following days. It was announced that they were going to attempt to make it illegal to change one’s sex as defined at birth, out of which the #Won’tBeErased trend arose in opposition of this harmful and dangerous rhetoric.

Airport protest, October 2018

My response to this was a deeply felt heartbreak, a resolution to wear my “Trans Rights Are Human Rights” pin every day, and going to my first “real” protest at our airport where hundreds of Trump fans walked through the mud to see him land, and a few dozen Trans* folks and allies gathered in solidarity and forced them to see us too.

3. I started to realize how deeply my heart was tied to these topics to do with gender identity, whether it be political fears, relating to and/or feeling an unexplainably strong, personal connection to genderqueer and transgender characters and public figures, or just the fact that every time I laid to rest the topic of questioning my gender, it always came back in time.

It was almost like the universe was orchestrating a giant soliloquy just to slap me in the face with a realization I had been putting off for years, and I could no longer ignore the doubts, dreams, and feelings that had always been there.

I was not just a butch lesbian. I was not just a girl who presented the way I wanted to. I wasn’t a girl at all, and when I finally realized this it was like I was shedding the skin of a role I had been forced to play and finally, taking a deep breath.

Like Yitzhak in Hedwig, after years of being ashamed and overshadowed by someone they loved, at the end they emerge, a beautiful butterfly queen with a strong, no longer silenced voice.

Yitzhak

You can play with gender. You can be one thing one day and another the next. You can be both, and you can be neither, and you can be whatever you are. While these topics are often very serious and life-affecting and sometimes sad or dangerous, they are also, in a way, very silly.

I love Hedwig because ultimately, the whole story revolves around gender and queerness and being different, but in the end, it also shows that these things don’t really matter all that much when it comes to the definition of a person. Hedwig herself is a very interesting, complex character because you get to see her messy, mean, broken self before you can see her find peace with who she is.

Hedwig

She puts on a grand show, but when it comes down to it, you see her strip off all the glitz and glam and come face to face with her own self. It’s a reminder that ultimately, we will all have to do the same. Trans, straight, brown, white, religious, atheist, disabled, athletes, artists, wealthy, beauty queens, loners, poor, immigrants, etc. All of us.

April 2019

I started writing this two years ago while this was all still happening. Here I am, a year and a half later, finally coming back to this with new experiences and insights. I haven’t written much in so long because I’ve been so tired, and for a good portion of the time, not myself. It’s a unique experience to come back to the beginnings of old writings because I feel like I’m meeting up with that self from two years ago, getting coffee and catching up on what’s changed, what was going on back then that I don’t remember now.

2018 me was just, finally, beginning to truly understand and accept their identity. They had just come out as gay to their dad that summer. They were working through a recent parental divorce and religious doubts and questions.

But when I look at all the things that have happened since that impactful October, it amazes me how much stronger and more sure of myself I have become.

I went to DC and made amazing friends who all knew me by the name and identity that I wanted them to. I joined a Trans Leadership group and started getting to do so much amazing activism.

I started using my Instagram and my example to people I knew as a way to educate those with questions, and to stand up for trans, disabled, queer, etc. communities. I started living more out about my gender expression and my disability and refusing to take any bullshit for it.

Me in DC, August 2019

I know 2018 me would look up at me and be proud and amazed at all the things I’ve recently done. But what I’ve realized while writing this that I am so, unbelievably proud of them.

For having the courage to put words to their feelings in a tiny, isolating Midwestern town. For knowing that in the future I would be braver and happier and for holding on until then. For believing in themself and loving their community so, so much.

For the courage to start putting this down into words, and the patience while waiting on me to come back and finish it.

Here’s to a future of evolving, of joy and celebration of identity, and of growing braver and braver every day.

Yitzhak's transformation

happiness
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About the Creator

Elliot Barber

19

they/them

advocate for my trans/queer & disabled/chronically ill communities

about to go to college for socio-political communications & eventually library science

"Becoming me was the greatest creative project of my life." -The Magicians

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